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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24903523">Final Calculation Pending</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancestrallizard/pseuds/ancestrallizard'>ancestrallizard</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Xenoblade Chronicles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:55:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,486</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24903523</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancestrallizard/pseuds/ancestrallizard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The solution, reached after far too much thought, is embarrassingly simple. What’s the best way to understand something? </p>
<p>Observe it firsthand.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alvis/Shulk (Xenoblade Chronicles)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>89</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Final Calculation Pending</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidbeast/gifts">voidbeast</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Extremely late b-day gift for voidbeast. I don't know XBC very well at all but i did my best?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Alvis doesn’t always understand what he knows.</p>
<p>He knows the complex chemical and neurological reactions that cause sentient creatures to act the ways that they do, but he doesn’t understand most of them. Not really. He’s had experience, however, hundreds of years of it, and he learned how to approximate appropriate emotional reactions. And, occasionally, he both knew and understood enough to skate by when his understanding proved lacking.</p>
<p>But now…</p>
<p>When Shulk, bold and steadfast, refused to be a god, Alvis accepted it. But he didn’t understand it. And when Shulk and his friends returned to Bionis, teeming with renewed life and potential, he still didn’t understand. He knew why they would all want to return, but it still bothered him. Why? Millions of untethered data points twisted around his mind like a cyclone, refusing to take a shape that would answer his questions. Why didn’t he understand? Why did it bother him so much that he didn’t understand? Why didn’t Shulk stay? Why did he want him to stay?</p>
<p>Beyond annoyance with his ignorance, he feels discontented. That alarms him most. He has felt concern, confusion, even anger, but rarely lingering discontent, festering like rot. Why?</p>
<p>The solution, reached after far too much thought, is embarrassingly simple. What’s the best way to understand something? </p>
<p>Observe it firsthand.</p>
<p>=</p>
<p>“Hello, Shulk.”</p>
<p>Shulk startles, dropping his wrench and almost falling off of the rusted mechon scrap. </p>
<p>Standing below him, Alvis catches the wrench before it falls.</p>
<p>Whether High Entia or homs, some habits seemed set in stone for organics. Colony 9 was thriving, based on his last visit, and with the fledgling relationship between the Homs and their Machina neighbors, there was no pressing need for new scrap. All the same, Shulk could more reliably been found in the field littered with abandoned mechs than in his own home.</p>
<p>Shulk wipes grime off the side of his face and smiles down at him. “Thanks. What are you doing here? Is something wrong?”</p>
<p>Shulk leans down and offers a hand. Alvis takes it, climbing up the mech’s shell to sit beside him. The dead machine was longer than it was tall, shaped like a massive beetle, with an oblong shell and six jointed legs, four of which were lost to time, scattered around surrounding scrapyard. The metal was warm under his fingers, heated by the falling sun.</p>
<p>“Everything is fine. “ He answers. He watches Shulk work on the mech. A deep hole in its center has exposed its wired, rusted innards, and Shulk appears to be trying to remove something from inside. </p>
<p>When Shulk first retuned home, Alvis worried that the culmination of his true identity and the enormity of all that he went through would have lingering malignant effects. But a year later, Shulk seemed to be he was doing well. Even from the handful of times Alvis had seen him, he could tell Shulk was trusting his friends, and he was more at ease that Alvis had ever been able to see him before. It was fascinating. </p>
<p>Even now, erratically smudged with grime and dirt, he looks comfortable and confident, completely in his element. </p>
<p>Alvis returns the wrench. Shulk returns it to the tool kit on his belt and retrieves two different, delicate-looking instruments, returns to the hole and seemed to be disassembling something. “I don’t think you’ve come down here just for company before,” He says. “Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”</p>
<p>Alvis leans closer, trying to see what he’s doing without blocking his light. “Nothing’s amiss. And, about company – that’s sort of what I came to talk to you about.”</p>
<p>Shulk nods, but his attention is entirely consumed by the mech. With a shriek of metal dragging on metal, Shulk pulls an object free, hard enough that he starts to fall over backwards and would have toppled off the mech if Alvis hadn’t shot out an arm across his shoulders to catch him. “Are you all right?”</p>
<p>Shulk looks like he’s been stunned by something. “Yeah. Great.”</p>
<p>His face is red – it must be warmer out for a homs than he thought.</p>
<p>Alvis takes his arm back. “I came to ask if I could stay in Colony 9 for a short period of time. There are questions I’m trying to solve that would be best pursued by staying on Bionis for a period.”</p>
<p>“Of course you can stay with us!” Shulk says immediately. “But why Colony 9? Would you rather stay with the High Entia?”</p>
<p>“I considered that,” Alvis answers, “But I don’t think I can find the answers I seek in a place where I was almost venerated. I want to be somewhere I am not known. And… I wanted to see how you’re all doing.”</p>
<p>His last statement catches him by surprise.  He doesn’t mean to say it, but it’s true – he knows they’re alive, but he wants to see for himself that Shulk and his allies are truly well, despite their ordeals.</p>
<p>Shulk smiles at him. “If you want to stay, you can stay,” he says, “And don’t worry about attention; there’s been a lot more people coming through recently, so you won’t stick out too much.”</p>
<p>Together, they carefully climb down from the mech. Shulk leads him across the field to a few bags already full of scavenged parts, carefully segmented and cleaned.</p>
<p>Shulk slips the mechanical piece into the largest bag. “Want to help me take these back?”</p>
<p>Alvis takes a bag, and nearly staggers under its weight. Shulk easily lifts the other two like they don’t weigh anything at all.</p>
<p>It was remarkably peaceful out; the sun was setting behind a bank of thin clouds, bathing the sky orange. The warmth is welcome. Small monsters glared at them from across the plains, but none make a move towards them.</p>
<p>“Do you still need to scavenge here?” Alvis asks.</p>
<p>Shulk shrugs. “I don’t really need to, technically. The Machina have been helping us upgrade and understand out own technology. It’s all still so amazing; I don’t think I’ll ever be over it. But I like to keep coming here all the same.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“Habit.” He answers bluntly. “It feels wrong to let things sit and rust away when they can still be reused. And the Machina are our allies, not servants. They shouldn’t be expected do and explain everything for us. It’s a partnership, and if they see us incorporating what they’ve taught us on our own, it could help make sure they don’t feel used.”</p>
<p>Interesting. This, at least, Alvis understands, or thinks he does; the desire to maintain a new diplomatic bond while preserving dignity and independence.</p>
<p>“And,” Shulk continues, “It’s relaxing. It helps keep my head clear.” He swallows and looks away, and Alvis can see the distressed man he’d seen so much of, simmering just beneath the surface. “Sometimes it's not… enough. But it usually works. What about you?”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry?”</p>
<p>“What do you do to clear you head. Or relax? I never saw you do anything like that in Alcamoth.”</p>
<p>Alvis searches his memory as Shulk patiently waits. Has anyone ever asked him that? What does he do?</p>
<p>“I’m… not sure,” he finally says, “I’ve done things when otherwise idle to prepare for necessary action later, but nothing to ‘keep my head clear’. I’ve never needed to.”</p>
<p>“Would you like to try?” Shulk asks.</p>
<p>What?</p>
<p>He stops walking, and Shulk stops too. Colony 9 stretches out on the plain below them, and it is thriving. Small figures move around the low buildings and lakes like insects in a hive. Even from the distance, Alvis can make out homs, machina, and even some Nopon.</p>
<p>Shulk was looking too, and smiling, soft and fond. </p>
<p>It looks so small from a distance, barely significant. But something down there compelled Shulk to stay. </p>
<p>Shulk puts one of the bundles down and stretches his arms as a cool breeze blows his bangs from his face.</p>
<p>“If you’re going to stay with us,” he says, “Maybe you can try things you haven’t before. When you’re on break from your investigations, I mean. Maybe you might enjoy it?”</p>
<p>The last sentence rose in inflection until it was a question. Shulk glances at him from the corner of his eye with a trepidation that frankly confuses Alvis. </p>
<p>He mulls over the proposition. He hasn’t thought about whether it would be something strenuous enough to need relief from. This was just something he would accomplish, eventually, and leave. But on their short walk, he’s already realized how much he missed being around Shulk. He likes hearing how he sees the world. He wants to speak to him more, hear him more.</p>
<p>A longer stay surely won’t hurt anything.</p>
<p>“That sounds reasonable,” he says, “As long as I can spend some of it with you, of course.”</p>
<p>Shulk’s face reddened again. After a long pause, he picks up the bags and begins moving down hill. “Of course!” he says, in a strained voice. “Let’s get these dropped off so I can find you a place to stay.”</p>
<p>One of the small figures looks their way, stops and waves. Shulk waves back.</p>
<p>This should prove educational, one-way or another.</p>
<p>=</p>
<p>It does, and it doesn’t.</p>
<p>Over the subsequent weeks, Alvis spends an unprecedented time amongst Homs. He’s dwelled among living beings, both organic and mechanical, but never in such a casual setting, sharing in work and leisure while willfully eroding any barriers of perceived mystique. He thinks it works for most of Colony 9, as they’d never known him from the beginning. He thought it may pose an issue with Shulk and his friends, given past history, but they show an openness an empathy that honestly surprises him. Shulk especially goes out of his way; he assists Alvis in finding a residence, teaches him how to do some of the daily colony chores that keep the settlement running, and anything else he could possibly require.</p>
<p>Things were perfectly set for him to make his observations, reach a conclusion, and leave.</p>
<p>It would be wonderful if that was what happened. It was not.</p>
<p> Instead, Alvis collects a monumental amount of observations and data points that don’t resolve into any clear picture. It doesn’t help that he’s purposefully ignoring some of his own past knowledge, to truly see and experience a new perspective.</p>
<p>During his time in the colony - </p>
<p>He receives a small potted plant from Fiora – a housewarming gift, she calls it – and he puts it on a windowsill of the room he’s been given, so he can see the way daylight and moonlight illuminates its spade-shaped leaves.</p>
<p>He assists Shulk in his research, and even though he feels like a hindrance more than anything with how often their discussions veer off-topic, he can’t bring himself to stay away.</p>
<p>He falls into a lake, and despite changing as soon as he can everyone who crosses his path sees his damp hair and rare frown and figures out what happened anyway.</p>
<p>He learns mechanical repair skills from Shulk, and marvels that though he knows the theory, actually doing it is an entirely different task, marvels too that when their hands brush as Shulk points out a broken frame, he thinks about the feeling for a long time afterward.</p>
<p>He journeys with Shulk and Reyn outside the colony, and when they all fight back against a sudden ambush of monsters, for a moment he feels a sharp stab of fear for the people beside him.</p>
<p>He meets Melia when she comes to the colony to visit her friends and former travelling companions, and when she finds him later and asks, muted and sad, about Kallian, he shares memories of him and as they reminisce he’s surprised that his heart aches.</p>
<p>He works late into the night on a personal project, the first time he’s ever had such a thing, and by the time it is done and he leaves the workshop, blinking leaden eyes, he stops and watches as the sky gradually pales and burns a bright orange as the silence is broken by a dawn’s chorus of birds all waking to sing.</p>
<p>He falls into a different lake.</p>
<p>He iss surprised when, after pulling himself from the lake, Shulk gives him his jacket even though it gets soaked and stays with him for most of the day to ‘make sure you don’t get sick’, even though he knows SHulk has work to do and he’s fairly sure he cant get sick anyway.</p>
<p>He finds certain meditative peace, working alone in the lab but with door open so he can hear friendly voices just down the hall.</p>
<p>He accompanies Shulk, Reyn, and Fiora to a festival in Colony 6, watches as they reunite with the rest of their companions, and observes beings of all species mingling peacefully, even joyfully, around the restored colony as the sky darkened and shops hung flickering orange and pink lanterns that shone in the distance like fallen stars.</p>
<p>“I was wondering where you went off to.” Shulk sits down beside him on the grassy hill, glancing between him and the revelry below. </p>
<p>“Am I needed?” Alvis asks.</p>
<p>“Not right now,” Shulk answers. “Though that doesn’t mean we don’t miss you. I just assumed you wanted to be somewhere quiet.”</p>
<p>“You assumed correctly.” He needed a break, and the hill let him listen to the revelry without being in the heart of it. Now he could watch the transition as it died down and night imperceptibly bled into morning.</p>
<p>He yawns. Physical rest isn’t necessary to keep him fully functioning, but he found it a difficult vice to neglect once indulged.</p>
<p>“Are you tired?” Shulk asks. “You can lie down, if you want.”</p>
<p>“That might be for the best. I think I last slept – when did we leave Colony 9?”</p>
<p>“Three days ago? Are you telling me you’ve been awake for three days?”</p>
<p>For some reason, Shulk takes off his jacket. It’s something he’s wearing for this festival in particular, tan and blue with stripes of red in it. It looks very soft.</p>
<p> “Here, you can use it as a pillow if you want. Or I can walk you back to our rooms.” He looks up at Alvis, before his gaze falls away, an odd thing he did more and more recently. “Or. If you want – wouldn’t mind it -?”</p>
<p>Alvis frowns. The other doesn’t look ill, but he’d learned that sickness and exhaustion could creep up without much warning. “Shulk?”</p>
<p>Shulk finally answers, and his voice is oddly rigid. “You can, um. Rest your head in my lap? If that’s softer than the ground.”</p>
<p>It doesn’t sound unpleasant. So he does, settling his head down on the folded jacket in Shulk’s lap. He closes his eyes, and breathes an unexpected sigh of relief. Privately, he’d always seen Shulk as akin to fire, bright and brilliant and determined to burn despite all odds, like a wildfire in a hurricane. As it turns out, he’s like a campfire too, no less dangerous but also a source of warmth and comfort. “Thank you,” he mumbles.</p>
<p>“It’s nothing.”</p>
<p>His mind drifts. Shulk idly brushes his fingers across hair, so light he almost doesn’t feel it. It’s calming, like coming home at the end of a long working day.</p>
<p>“Are you any closer to finding what you’ve been looking for?” Shulk asks quietly. </p>
<p>Alvis is so preoccupied with the unexpected tranquility that he almost misses the question. “I think I have. Quite recently, actually.”</p>
<p>The hand stops. “Really? So what was it?”</p>
<p>Alvis thinks. </p>
<p>All of the data he’s collected during his stay in Colony 9 has organized itself into a picture, one with a few missing key pieces but still something he thinks he can interpret. The sheer scope he was capable of perceiving sometimes worked against him, leading to him missing forest for the trees or vice versa. </p>
<p>“I understand why you stayed here,” he says, “Rather than become a god. I knew why you would, you said as much, but I think I’m closer to truly understand that, in my own way.”</p>
<p>Shulk tenses beneath him. “That’s good. So you’ll be leaving soon?”</p>
<p>“Not yet,” he answers, “As I still don’t understand my own feelings.”</p>
<p>Shulk relaxes. The hand returned to his forehead. “What do you mean?”</p>
<p>Alvis hesitates. He’d never voiced this part of his reason for staying, hadn’t wanted Shulk to feel pressured to help him.</p>
<p>“When you left,” he began slowly, “I was unusually emotional. I couldn’t make myself forget. I – I –“</p>
<p>Memories of his stay in Colony 9 parade past him again, all the little triumphs and defeats of a mortal life, and a piece of the puzzle clicks into place. His eyes snap open with the revelation. The sight of Shulk, looking at him intently, early morning light granting his bronzed skin a subtle glow, greets him. “I was – jealous. And sad.”</p>
<p>“Jealous? Of what?”</p>
<p>“Of your life here.” He says. “If you chose to be a god, you would be something similar to me. You wouldn’t die of old age. We could stay together. Even then, I enjoyed your company. I wanted more time to be around you.”</p>
<p>Shulk nods. He looks down to the town, where celebrations have finally wound down into a comfortably exhausted slumber. “If I had chosen it,” he says quietly, “I don’t think I would ever stop regretting it.”</p>
<p>He was right. If anything, his time in the Colony proved without a doubt that Shulk belongs with his friends and people, working and living together to shape their own destiny rather than staying at the mercy of some divine arbiter. It was for the best.</p>
<p>“But,” Shulk continues, “I thought about spending more time with you, too.”</p>
<p>Alvis glances up in surprise. Shulk smiles at him, small and shy, and something prods Alvis’s conscience, that the picture he thinks is complete is missing some final essential component.</p>
<p>At the start of all of this, he’d wanted to spend more time with SHulk. Rather than become acclimated to his presence, the more they were together the more Alvis wants to continue being around him, to hear his thoughts, to watch him grow, to just appreciate silence together. He wants Shulk to continue to think well of him, so badly it physically pains him. Physical contact, something he barley gave a passing thought before, was now unexpectedly important, when it came to him. It felt like comfort, a comfort he wanted to return, not to keep up diplomatic relationship but simply because he wants to make him happy.</p>
<p>The final piece clicks into place. </p>
<p>“Oh,” Alvis says, “I like you.”</p>
<p>Shulk tilts his head in confusion. “Um. I’m glad to be your friend too?”</p>
<p>Reluctantly, Alvis gets up to properly face him. He still doesn’t have much of an appreciation for aesthetic beauty, and so doesn’t know if Shulk’s eyes are objectively beautiful, or that they’re beautiful because of the person they belong too. Their provenance didn’t much matter, he supposed – they thrilled him all the same.</p>
<p>“I like you in a romantic sense.”</p>
<p>Shulk’s mouth opens, but it takes a moment for him to say anything. “Okay.”</p>
<p>That doesn’t tell Alvis much – does he only acknowledge his feelings, but not return them? – but before he can ask for clarification, Shulk smiles, so widely and happily makes him glow even more like a flame, and he starts to laugh. Alvis still doesn’t know what to think. Is this a for of rejection he hasn’t heard of before?</p>
<p>Still grinning, Shulk takes his loose hand, curling their fingers together, and there was his answer, he realizes as heartbeat speeds, for some reason. “Your confessions can definitely use some work,” Shulk says, “But I’m really happy you told me.”</p>
<p>Alvis smiles back at him, and marvels that he never understood the warmth blazing through him for what it was. For the first time in his centuries of life, he’s filled with a pure, naïve joy that he has no idea what to do with.</p>
<p>“Can I kiss you?”</p>
<p>Shulk leans in. Alvis worries, in the back of his mind, that Shulk may find him off-putting, or that his nature as a not-really-Homs might have repulsed him. But based on the way Shulk pulled him close and kissed him until he feels dizzy, that wasn’t a concern in the least.</p>
<p>(He worries, too, that he doesn’t know how to kiss back, not satisfactorily, only mirroring what Shulk does, mirroring touches where Shulk touched, all while trying to learn as fast as he possibly could. But – it was about pleasure, not perfection. He could learn. He had time).</p>
<p>There would always be things he never understood, factors twisting and evolving outside of his control, but as he and Shulk separated, wearing matching grins, staying close as a new day washes over them both, he thinks he could learn to be fine with that.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>ancestrallizard.tumblr.com</p>
<p>twitter.com/DVLblues</p></blockquote></div></div>
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